It is
a common belief that man has always dreamed of individual immortality.
Is the threashold of the III millennium not the right time and place for
trying to achieve it? Having this possibility in mind, let us then make
an attempt to consider and evaluate the structure of our personality, i.e.
the essence of our ego. Today there is sufficient
ground to believe that its two major components are biological and informational.
If this is a true assumption, the problem of individual immortality could
be reduced to preserving these components for the time being, and
when the science advances permit, merging them into structural unity. Is it possible to preserve
the biological basis of our ego in time? The positive answer to this
question seems to be evident. Given the advances of cloning, today
the necessary biological material can be selected from any man, and upon
being preserved under specific and accessible conditions for an unlimited
period of time serve the substance for cloning a genetically identical
creature. In August 1996 people from
Biverton research center, USA, succeeded in cloning Resus monkeys
(the order of primates), whose picture was all over mass media. The world-known scientist
Stephen Hawking nicknamed a modern Cassandra has recently stated
in his lecture delivered in The White House that, like it or lump it, gene
engineering of man is going to happen in the comming millennium. Which
means that man cloning can become common practice soon enough. We all are aware yet that
a clonized double cannot be identfied to the ego that had served the original
biological material, the reason being the exclusive psychological features
pertaining to every personality. These include such abillities of ours
as memory, thinking, and intellect, plus our emotional and affective areas
as well as our unique life experience, the whole of which being a
volume of extremely specific information. Professor A.Bolonkin, an
authority in the field of electronic intellect, believes that as soon as
we manage to model all neurons, there will be a chance to record the information
into chips thus making man immortal with his existence continued in electronic
dimension. He is optimistic enough to suppose that in the 20th thirties
humanity will have such an opportunity. Noteworthy is a recent report
in the Russian press from a lab that used to be entirely covert in consideration
of its confidentiality, about human biological field research which had
led to an opportunity to read parameters of information from certain objects
and then transmit them to man. This paper is very essential since biological
field parameters along with the findings of cernain modern neuro- physiological
research are likely to be those critically important individual information
components that are preservable in time.

There seem to exist some other
considerations to be taken into account.

1. The age at which biological material
sampling is done for man cloning means a lot wnen the goal is to achieve
individual immortality. A hypothesis based on Lamarkís theory about inheriting
acquired symptoms holds that two cloned species formed with biological
material taken from the same donnor but at different age will have certain
phenotypical difference resulting from some additional information
presented in the genetic material and accumulated during the donnorís life.
(Lamarkís theory is nowadays considered attractive by a number of serious
researchers, who do not oppose it to the theory of Darvin, but find the
two theories contributing one to another.) If the hypothesis is true, then
besides its general meaning for the idea of individual immortality, it
specifically means that the older is the donnor of biological material
the better.Provided that the future grants the opportunity to
integrate both genetic and informational components in a structural entity,
there arises a problem of qualitative and quantitative assessment of the
combination of the donnorsí individual psychological properties , whicn
are determined not only by natural characteristics, but also by their social
life conditions. Today we have sufficiently
elaborated methods of psychological diagnostics that allow us to select
and estimate the major integral, or so called system forming , personality
qualities such as motivation, self-consciousness, and a number of other
individual features that determine a personís behavior,condition and feeling
within the system of interpersonal relations. Thus even today we can obtain
and preserve in time both the egoís biological component and certain
information about its psycho-physiology parametres. There is no doubt that
time will come when mankind will be able to unify these cjmponents in a
structural entity, which will probably solve the problem of individual
immortality. A question remains however
whether the information we are able to obtain and preserve so far, is sufficient
for fulfilling the task. In case the answer is positive, the audacious
dream of man can turn feasible during the life of the present generation.
It is an open question for the time being. But is there any harm in trying?

P.S. We still cannot deny the liklihood ofthe existence
of some other and irrarional component that makes our ego absolutely
irreproductive whatsoever by means of scientific approach. Then we can
only rely on the Will of Lord . A question arises however
whether the above-said is consistent to the most common and widely spread
religious perceptions of appropriate thinking and action of man, and with
his approach to life and relationship with The Most High. In other words
is the setting up the problem of individual immortality not sheer
heresy, and therefore absolutely unacceptable for a righteous man? Let us try considering the
problem from the point of view of those who stand by monotheism. Here is
a brief account of how they perceive the surrounding world, the duty of
man to The Most High, and what is our soul. Our inner assumption being
that relation of man with God is highly personal, connection of each unique
individual to his or her Creator is profoundly intimate. God is beyond
our conceiving. The world we live in is called
the world of action. Its lower part is the physical world of action
where the law of nature dominates. Above it exists the world of spiritual
action. In the world of action the
spiritual is subordinated to the material as the law of nature determines
the image and structure of all things, and directs all development. In
this world Spirit can only reveal Itself on the solid ground of what we
call the forces of nature. The mission of man and his duty to The Most
High is continue creation of this world. I will take up the cup of salvation...
(Psalms, 116:13.) Each man is designated to
fulfill his unique task, and his share of duty to God. Man reaches the
goal of his own by the path of his own on the call of his own heart. The
soul of man is to continuously develop during its Earth existence. Soul ought to be understood
as a continuous line of spiritual existence originating from the Source
of all souls connected by this line with the soul of a certain man rather
than as a definite thing enveloped in a body, or some immaterial substance.
Each soul is unique in terms of its abilities and the tasks it is appointed
to fulfill. The main goal of the soul is to be attained not outside the
physical world, but inside it among the living beings and in contact with
the matter. At its first level the soul conveys vital energy to the body,
gives it ability of thinking and contemplating. At a higher level the soul
determines manís consciousness and abilities to create. The point where
the soul contacts Divinity is located at the highest level. The human soul utilizes the
body as a tool for its functioning in this world. Being clad in flesh,
it thinks, percepts, feels and reacts. Existing in reality it fulfills
a dual task of perfecting the outer world and raising itself to a higher
level. Upon leaving the material world a soul that has attained its goal
awaits the time when the world will achieve the ultimate perfection.
If a soul does not fulfill its spiritual mission, after the manís death
it remains restless, and eventually returns to another body to make one
more attempt and to right the wrong it did to itself and the world during
its previous life on Earth. The struggle of each soul
for achieving its individual goal is at the same time the struggle of the
whole world for salvation. Coming back to the matter in order to improve
both the matter and itself, the soul eventually reaches the summit
of perfection accessible to it. A thorough analysis of this
very superficial and primitive account of religious views, and its comparison
with the purposes of Project 50 allow us to conclude that they are not
utterly inconsistent. Moreover they even contribute to each other. Implementation
of Project 50 may result in producing certain biological and informative
matrix that would be the basis for recreating the human soul for it to
reenter the material world and fulfill its spiritual mission.